


Counter Attack

by leftfoottrapped (miikkaa_xx)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Headcanon, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:12:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miikkaa_xx/pseuds/leftfoottrapped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From <a href="http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/524.html?thread=84492#cmt84492">snkkink</a>.</p><p>How Rivaille went from crime to the military to the Scouting Legion, and fell for Hanji Zoe along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counter Attack

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Контратака](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5708842) by [Amaryllis133](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amaryllis133/pseuds/Amaryllis133)



> **warnings:** violence, language, explicit sex, and headcanons galore about events and ages. this fic is unbeta'd - feel free to point out any errors in prose and/or characterisation.

-

Rivaille is thirteen when he is orphaned.

His father fucked off somewhere when he was six or seven or eight – he doesn’t really know, nor does he really care. There’s not a lot of memories that can be positive when they’ve been dirt poor since the beginning and his father leaving doesn’t get them any richer.

It’s a bad life, knows Rivaille, when his mother works at the manufacturing factory in town and comes home covered in soot, her shoulders aching, her back arched forward from her toils over metalwork and forges.

The work is dirty and their home is filthy.

Rivaille’s first memory of his mother is coal-stained fingers trying to break off a piece of the stale bread and give him something to eat, something to survive.

It’s almost a relief when his mother dies young, a thankful smile on her mouth as the aches and pains of her body finally leave her in a breath, disease or fatigue or the black in her lungs taking her away from him.

He grieves by cleaning her hands, picking at the coal under her fingernails, the brush of ash over her cheekbone, washing her hair with their limited water and soap until it is the gleaming night sky spread over their stained table.

He brings the brush of beauty over her corpse and it’s his last memory of her before calling for the local police to take her body away for cremation. It’d be no good to bury the dead into land that could be tilled for wheat.

A week passes. Rivaille cleans his entire house – tiny as it is. Brushes the cobwebs of memory from the corners of the kitchen, airs out the bedding where unfulfilled dreams had laid to rest, wipes down the last vestiges of good faith from the floors and counters and tables.

Rivaille is thirteen when he leaves his home looking untouched.

-

Rivaille is fifteen when he is caught pickpocketing.

It’s the first time it happens since he’s mastered the skill at fourteen. Rivaille is almost affronted when the middle-aged man – tufts of salt-and-pepper hair over the large ears and an overeager smile – grabs his arm and inquires, ‘what are you doing with my wallet?’

‘What are you talking about – let go of me,’ snaps Rivaille, feeling the skeavy finger grease of the man sink through his shirt sleeve, spreading over his arm. It makes his skin crawl. ‘I said _let go_.’ He darts a glance around the street they’re on, at the glances they’re getting, and feels alarm ratchet up his spine.

‘Once you return the wallet, if you will, young man.’ The middle-aged man is wearing the usual trousers, button-up, suspenders and overcoat. The wallet was in the overcoat from when Rivaille saw the man pocket it after purchasing cigarettes. The man shouldn’t have been able to feel Rivaille’s hand at all.

Rivaille sneers at him, his voice quiet enough so that they can stop getting stares from the passerbys, ‘ _make me_ ,’ because there’s no way this man is going to do anything about it – he’s just some lumbering idiot with a grin on his face and no real strength. Rivaille just has to make the other lose his grip for a second and he is _gone_.

Instead, the man nods and calls out, ‘Corporal!’ The crowd around them stills, surprised, but Rivaille sucks in a breath in alarm, wrenching his arm to get away. The grip on his arm holds fast.

No way, thinks Rivaille, still struggling. No way, there is _no fucking way_ this guy is part of the Scouting Legion that have taken lodgings in town last week. The man isn’t wearing a uniform, nor boots, and Rivaille hasn’t spotted a weapon under the overcoat either. The Scouting Legion has even taken some farmstead far out of town proper anyway – what is this guy doing _here_?

Said Corporal appears through the gathering crowd and Rivaille knows he is done for. Screw the old man, the Corporal meant business with his sleek blond hair parted on the side, his expression-less face, and cold, cold eyes. He wears the Scouting Legion jacket over broad shoulders, and his hands are wide and covered in callouses. Rivaille has been in enough fights to size the Corporal up. If it comes down to fists, he’s fucked.

‘Corporal, it seems this young man has taken my wallet,’ says the man pleasantly, and Rivaille snarls at him before returning his wide-eyed gaze to the Corporal.

‘Not a problem, Commander,’ says the Corporal, voice calm, and Rivaille has a moment to have a small heart attack that he’s fucking pickpocketed the goddamn _Commander of the Scouting Legion_ before there’s a hand on his neck and Rivaille is being lifted up in the air , gasping for breath, clawing at the fingers gripping his throat. ‘Hello, my name is Irvin, I’m the Corporal under the Commander, whom you’ve met.’ His voice is pleasant, but his hand imperceptibly tightens. ‘What’s your name?’

Rivaille is way too busy choking to be answering any questions right now. Still, he manages a coughed up, ‘Rivaille!’ before stars begin appearing in his vision.

The grip loosens, lowering until Rivaille’s feet are on the ground to hold him up as he sucks in breath after breath of glorious oxygen. Vaguely, his mind registers that Irvin is wearing gloves and Rivaille already likes him more than the Commander. Glancing to the side, he saw that somewhere between the choking and the talking, the Commander had taken his wallet back from Rivaille’s pocket and was now verifying its contents. How detail-oriented of him.

‘You have a choice – either you spend a year or maybe two or maybe three in prison for the crimes committed,’ continues Irvin, ‘or you can recruit yourself into the military when you’re… of age.’

‘I’m fifteen,’ snaps Rivaille, somehow catching the insult in the threat. Irvin’s mouth quirks at the side in some mockery of a smile.

‘Really, now. I’ll see you in the recruitment session next year then, or else.’

 _You’ll forget about me_ , thinks Rivaille as the grip on his throat lets go and he’s left to himself. The crowd around them disperses at the end of the action, and Rivaille is rubbing at the bruises left behind, staring back at Irvin as he walks down the street, away from the two.

 _You’ll forget about me, and I won’t have to worry about a thing._ True to form, the Scouting Legion leave in the third week after their arrivel, and Rivaille never sees Irvin or the Commander once after that. Still, he learns to pick his targets with more care after that.

However, the pickings are slim and Rivaille continues to live in a dirt hovel despite his manic attempts to clean it, and he starves quietly through the year. It comes to him on a raining Wednesday that he can’t exist like this anymore – off the crime and filth of the town – when the alternative is dangled in front of him, the way Irvin dangled him up in the sky by his neck.

Rivaille is fifteen when he decides to recruit.

-

Rivaille is sixteen when he meets Hanji Zoe.

The recruitment wagon escorts Rivaille out of his town to a bigger city east of here. It’s him and five others and they don’t speak, huddled under cloaks of their poverty and desperation as they look for no other alternative to their lives. The rich kids go into manufacturing nowadays, Rivaille’s heard, but there’s no way in hell he’s going to step foot in a factory.

It’s a day’s swift ride, so the wagon lags on for two extra days, and finally – Rivaille is fitted into a uniform on a raining afternoon, given two empty blade holders, straps where his 3D gear will be attached, and boots. They’re ushered quickly into a long wooden hall and a speech is given by some nameless supervisor as they are officially recruited together in the 54th division.

The dorm he stays in has three bunk beds – one to the left, the other to the right and the last one shoved next to the window directly opposite the room’s entrance. Rivaille takes to the top left bunk and hunkers down to sleep when he sees the person on the top bunk perpendicular to him.

‘Hello,’ the person greets – short, flyaway brown hair and large eyes. Around the neck is a hemp rope that is attacked to a pair of lenses held together by a short stub of metal. The makeshift glasses make Rivaille furrow his brow in bewilderment. How does someone with subpar sight get into the military? Were they really that strapped for recruits?

‘Hi,’ he says, belated and wary. The person – Rivaille doesn’t really know if they’re a boy or girl, it could swing either way – cocks their head.

‘So, how’d you trick ‘em into thinking you’re sixteen?’

Rivaille’s eyebrow twitches. ‘I _am_ sixteen.’

‘Uh-huh.’ There’s a beat. Rivaille watches the other fumble and then put their lenses on.

‘Yeah, I guess if I squint and maybe tilt my head a little.’ Their tone is understanding and a bit pitying. Rivaille feels the sudden urge to punch them.

‘Good night,’ he snaps, sick of the company, and pulls the sheets over his face. This is a terrible fucking decision considering countless other recruits have passed through these dorms. Rivaille makes a high-pitched sound in the back of his throat before he struggles upwards, almost slamming his head on the ceiling.

‘Yeah, they smell pretty bad,’ says Rivaille’s annoying-as-fuck neighbour, tone now consoling. ‘Here – spray this onto them.’ Handing him a spray bottle pulled from a bag at their feet, the person grins encouragingly. ‘Trust me.’

Rivaille’s paranoid enough that he’ll take some freak’s help than let this go. Without further ado, he sprays them over the sheets and – sure enough – something sweet settles over his bed, the previous odour of stale sweat and dirt and dust diminishing away. It makes the ball in his throat go back down – there’s memories to those scents and Rivaille’s better off not remembering.

He sprays his pillow, his uniform, the rest of the mattress, and even his bag for good measure. His enthusiasm for the perfume gets him laughed at by the other, but he doesn’t give a fuck at this point. There’s more important things to be done – like continue the illusion of being clean. Tomorrow, he’ll have to actually wash his bedding, but for now, this will do.

Minutes later, he reluctantly hands back the spray bottle and the other grins. ‘See? Trust me.’

Rivaille narrows his eyes. ‘Thanks.’ Courtesy demands that if he takes something from another, he should offer something in return. ‘My name is Rivaille.’

‘Yeah?’ says the other, stuffing the spray bottle back into the bag, ‘my name is Hanji.’

‘What was in that spray bottle?’

Hanji grins at him – eyes beaming. ‘Science.’

Rivaille figures he should probably end this coversation right now. ‘Right. Okay. Goodnight.’

The eyes don’t dim in the slightest. They’re a bit manic. Hanji nods. ‘Yeah, alright, g’night, Rivaille.’

Rivaille is sixteen when he realizes the first friend he’s made is probably batshit insane.

-

Rivaille is still sixteen when he figures out Hanji is eighteen and better than him in a lot of things.

Like 3D maneuvering.

‘Whee! This is so much fun!’ Hanji yells, jumping off the cliff face and backflipping three times before easing off the gas to land on their hands and cartwheel across the yard. ‘Rivaille! Isn’t this great!’

Rivaille wants to unhook Hanji from the cliff and set the cord on fire.

‘Shut up and come back, dumbass!’ he calls out instead, glancing over at the instructor who is staring at Hanji in slight bewilderment. Rivaille can empathize.

Hanji unclasps the cord from their belt and lets it retract back to the hook. Rivaille sighs and bends over the cliff face to wrench the hook out of the rock without causing a landslide. There’s a moment of great pride when he succeeds. Technically, they’re being timed, but Hanji chooses a leisurely pace to climb back up the cliff face and reach Rivaille. They high-five – Rivaille’s hand held up by Hanji’s as they forcefully claps their free hand against his. The instructor is still staring at them.

‘Okay, your turn! I’ll cheer!’

‘Please just shut the fuck up,’ Rivaille says, cringing, and springs into the air, throwing his hook out to grab onto the cliff face and begin his standard flips.

Rivaille is sixteen when he catches the instructor after class to get extra 3D maneuvering practice done while the other recruits head out on their breaks.

-

Rivaille is still sixteen when he finds out Hanji has a cunt.

‘Wait, you’re a girl?’ he says, incredulous, as he stares at Hanji’s short, messy hair, and flat chest under the uniform shirt.

Hanji is still crouching in the forest, peeing and staring at Rivaille as if this was an obvious fact. The recruits have an overnight training session, camping in the woods, and Rivaille had decided to accompany Hanji to take a piss when suddenly his friend was _crouching_.

‘I guess,’ says Hanji, finishing up and shaking away any droplets with a wiggle. Rivaille cringes and rips off a leaf from a tree, shoving it in his friend’s face. Hanji takes it and uses it as substitute toilet paper. ‘I don’t really care – I can be a boy too. Sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl. I’m always Hanji, though.’ Hanji grins widely at him.

Rivaille stares before his face crumples and sighs. ‘Fuck it. I give up. Hanji it is.’

Hanji tilts their head, ‘I’ll be a girl for you, Rivaille.’

Rebelliously, Rivaille pulls out his dick and determinedly takes a piss despite his friend having a cunt. ‘Fine. Whatever,’ he spits out without even thinking, slightly flustered that he didn’t even realize Hanji was – well – _Hanji_. ‘You’ll be my girl Hanji then.’

Laughter then. Rivaille surreptitiously wipes his hands and his dick with leaves and tucks himself back in. All very neat, thank you very much. Finally, he turns his head to face Hanji, who is still laughing. ‘What?’

‘Sometimes,’ she heaves, grin splitting her face, ‘I forget you’re still sixteen.’

With that, she claps him on the back and walks back to camp alone.

Rivaille is still sixteen when he decides Hanji will always be an annoying piece of shit, friend or not.

-

Rivaille is seventeen when he finally makes another friend.

The 54th division sits on horses riding along Wall Rose to get to the main town east of here. Rivaille doesn’t remember the name of it – only the skyline of it as it blooms in the horizon, past the farmsteads and the fruit trees. The height of the buildings burst forth behind the semi-circle of Wall Maria as the gates open and the recruits are ushered inside.

The town – no, city – is so much bigger than what Rivaille has seen. There are many businesspeople here selling their wares to the side, large merchant shops with clanging bells, hotels, stables for the horses, government buildings built with large squares of flattened stone around them and even a square pool of fish for aesthetic value placed before the entrance to the main military building they're told to march towards.

The 54th division is then ushered to another form of barracks – this time cleaner, though smaller, and Rivaille already loves it here. They have a break, where Rivaille showers for the first time in their three day ride and wonders if he should make Hanji do the same. She has no concept of cleanliness, though her spray bottles are a miracle for Rivaille.

Finally, the instructors introduce the 54th division to the 51st, 52nd, and 53rd division. The recruits line up in order and listen as the instructor tells them of their future tests to work together.

‘You might die and be replaced. Your friends may die and be replaced. You must be able to work together with near strangers and close friends – and so, starting tomorrow, we will perform drills with everyone involved.’

Rivaille thinks its sound logic, still – the fact that they can gather all the divisions here says something about the state of lack of recruits they’re receiving for the military. The rich kids really _do_ go into manufacturing, don’t they?

They’re dismissed soon enough, and Rivaille wonders where the dining hall is when a shadow drops over him and there is a distinct sniffing sound at his neck. There is a moment of pride when he has enough self-control not to squeal like a little girl and punch the offender. Instead, Rivaille takes a sharp step away and turns on his heel. ‘Yes?’ he asks tightly, before he realizes he’s staring at a chest. Rivaille tilts his head up to see a blonde haired man with a square face and expressive eyes. He has the wisps of a mustache growing on his lip. Rivaille sometimes wonders about the lack of his own.

‘Hello,’ he greets, and the man blinks before nodding.

‘Hello. You smell like peonies.’ The man’s voice is just bordering on deep – he must be Rivaille’s age too, maybe even younger. ‘Why is that?’

Rivaille has half a mind to start yelling for Hanji to get rid of this guy, but he’s also a soldier-in-training and needs to face freaks head-on. ‘It’s a… perfume spray. A friend made it, it gets rid of odours and leaves behind – uh – peonies, I guess.’ Rivaille doesn’t even know what a fucking peony looks like – he came from a manufacturing town, they didn’t have time for flowers, but it makes him wonder about Hanji.

‘It’s nice.’ The young man is smiling. ‘My name is Mike.’

‘Rivaille,’ offers the other, ‘54th division. Seventeen, by the way.’ Because he’s not taking anymore shit about ‘tricking the military’ when they let him in.

‘52nd, sixteen,’ says Mike, and Rivaille is just a little envious that Mike’s broken 170 cm at sixteen, but that’s neither here nor there.

‘Wanna meet a freak?’ he asks, because the best way to deepen a friendship fast is to face some sort of trauma together.

‘Okay,’ replies Mike, still smiling gently, and he follows Rivaille to the dining hall where he’s sure Hanji is already causing a loud mess introducing herself to her fellow recruits.

In thirty seconds, Mike and Hanji are already discussing the chemical properties of flower scents and debating the viability of capping the scent of daisies versus peonies.

Rivaille is seventeen when he realizes his new friend is also a freak.

-

Rivaille is eighteen when he sees Corporal Irvin again.

‘Hello, recruits,’ he says, ‘Wall Maria has been breached. Prepare to fight.’

And the flurry of activity that ensues doesn’t even give Rivaille time to catch his breath. Soon, he’s on a horse, riding hard southwards, leaving Wall Rose in his dust as his horse’s hooves kick up the dirt and lead him forward. The weight of his gear isn’t a foreign feeling anymore, the hooks on his straps, the extra blades resting on his hips – it’s all coming together.

Suddenly, Rivaille understands how to fight.

Hanji’s horse is quickly pulling at his side, her back arched over the horse, face determined. Rivaille belatedly realizes he’s glad that she’s found a way to strap her glasses to her head but her hair is longer and flying all over the place. With a quick motion, he snaps an elastic band from his pouch and shouts at her. ‘Give me your hand!’

She glances over at him before extending her arm and Rivaille lets his fingers place the elastic in her palm as they keep riding forward. There’s a brief moment where her touch sears into him and Rivaille realizes he can’t lose these people here. He can’t lose himself here.

‘Tie your hair back and come home alive, shithead!’ he yells over the pounding of the hooves. Hanji looks at him, her hand in a fist, clutching the elastic band.

Her face is split into a grin, ‘let’s go kill some Titans, Rivaille,’ and her voice is an echo as she pulls her horse forward, losing herself in the crowd of other recruits as they try to get to the breach as soon as possible.

There is no strategy to this, no real plan of action – just ‘kill as many as you can and come home’.

Rivaille finds – as he sweeps off his horse, flying into the air, his hook caught into a wheat silo, swinging him towards the head of a 15m Titan – that he excels at this.

He’s good at killing Titans. It’s terrifying – this ability to rend life away from these monsters, but Rivaille feels it in his blood, his heart pounding as he shoves his first blades into the nape and leaps off, backflipping and taking in the other Titans all around him.

There’s ecstatic screaming somewhere to his left and Rivaille spares a glance. Hanji is soaked in Titan blood, her blades stained red as she screams her fury and curiosity into their dead bodies. There’s a recklessness to her fighting that Rivaille has always seen in the drills, but she makes it work with her instincts guiding her fast and hard through the throng of monsters.

Still, Rivaille doesn’t have time to check up on her, nor the flurry of blonde that must be Mike at her side. There is killing to be done as the citizens are evacuated as fast as possible, trying to not diminish their numbers as they’re asked to hold onto their horses and _run from Maria_.

If there’s symbolism here somewhere, Rivaille misses it as he shoves his third blade into a Titan neck and pulls back, blood splattered on his cheek as he screams his rage into their dying faces.

Rivaille is eighteen when he realizes only 10 percent of the recruits survived the attack.

-

(Rivaille is eighteen when he cries for the first time since his mother’s death about this fact)

-

Hanji is glassy-eyed and expression-less as the funeral rites take place in the untouched walls of Rose. Mike is at his other side, looking the same, and Rivaille doesn’t have to touch his own face to know he is also a stone statue of grief.

Corporal Irvin stands before the last remaining stragglers and his face is haggard, his hair a mess. The last week with the killing and evacuation has been hard on the Scouting Legion, especially after the Commander died. Even Rivaille can offer a piece of his grief for the old man.

‘I have been promoted to Commander,’ he says, voice raw, ‘and I ask the remaining recruits – would you join the Scouting Legion with me? Or will you stay for the domestic military police? Both are needed, both appreciated, and – ’ His voice breaks off. He can’t continue. The force is in shreds, the Scouting Legion’s usefulness being tested and rendered incompetent. Still, Rivaille knows Irvin will force the government to continue funding and supporting the Legion. It’s much too important now that Maria has been breached. The military police will not venture past Maria, will not even try to protect the citizens against the invading flood of Titans.

Just then, Rivaille realizes where he wants to be. When Irvin calls for recruits to join the military police to stand to the left, the recruits move, haggard, their steps dragging, as they leave the group and push away from the horror they’ve seen.

Rivaille stays. He almost vomits when he sees that Mike and Hanji have not moved from his side.

Corporal – no, Commander Irvin – eyes them with something like relief and determination. ‘You have chosen to do this, and I thank you. Your names?’

‘Hanji.’

‘Mike.’

‘Rivaille.’

Irvin looks them over again, his gaze lingering over Rivaille. ‘So you did come.’

‘Yes, sir,’ says Rivaille. Hanji glances at him curiously but doesn’t say a word.

‘Welcome to the Scouting Legion, you will be assigned new equipment, uniforms, and lodgings by my stand-in Corporal. Training begins tomorrow.’

-

Rivaille is twenty when Hanji is asked to be promoted to Corporal.

‘Why did you say no?’ he snaps at her, irritated. ‘You’re good at directing, you can _think_ unlike some of these assholes, and you are fucking great at killing Titans.’

Hanji is sitting on her bed in just her underclothes, flipping through a notebook that Rivaille found earlier in a scout. Some woman’s last words before she was eaten. The notes sounded a bit like an insane person’s ramblings, so he had handed it off to Hanji, figuring she could decipher it.

‘Oi, asshole, listen to me when I talk to you,’ he sneers. Hanji looks up, her eyes wide as her hair falls in a tangled mess over her bare shoulders. She looks terrifyingly vulnerable and Rivaille has to restrain himself from taking a step back.

‘I haven’t even been a Squad Leader like Mike, how can I be a Corporal?’ she says, using rationale, and Rivaille is almost surprised. Almost.

‘Bullshit, you’re so full of bullshit.’

Hanji laughs – a little weakly – and Rivaille hates that. He scoffs, planting himself onto her bed beside her, toeing off his boots and socks. If she’s going to be this way, he might as well become comfortable. Rivaille supposes it’s true that they’re still simply soldiers under Mike’s squad. They haven’t even been touched upon in promotions by Commander Irvin and it is a wonder considering their killing streaks are so high.

‘I – I’ve been thinking,’ Hanji starts, voice soft. Her fingers trail down the spine of the mud-cracked diary.

‘About what? Science?’ he snaps, because there’s always experiments and deductions and hypotheses spinning around in her head.

‘Yeah,’ she says, surprised at his guess, ‘how’d you know?’

Rivaille narrows his eyes at her. ‘Could you keep fucking talking.’

‘Look, we’ve been killing Titans for - what? Generations, right?’ she begins, and Rivaille knows there’s no stopping her as her hands drop the diary in her lap and begin their enthusiastic air demonstrations. ‘And what use has it been? It’s a tried-and-tested method. The results are always the same. But what if – what if – ’

Rivaille ends up sitting beside her for two hours, his face twisted in incredulous fascination as she sketches out her hypotheses to him, using the diary of ramblings as a hint of something. Communication with the Titans. Finding more weak spots. Finding a sure fire way to either appease them all without sacrificing humans, or destroy them entirely.

‘And being Corporal means that I won’t have time to think like this,’ she finishes, ‘being Corporal means that I’ll be too busy worrying about a few humans rather than humanity.’

He leaves her rooms in a huff, though understanding creeps between his ribs, and he can’t help but imagine the possibilities that she so enthusiastically described. There’s something about being friends with Hanji that makes him open his eyes to the potential and he wonders if that’s a good or bad thing.

Rivaille is twenty when he is called to Commander Irvin’s office the next day and offered the role of Corporal and Rivaille accepts.

-

Rivaille is twenty-one when he finally gets enough pull with Irvin to ask for Hanji to be his Squad Leader.

‘I get it,’ he snaps, annoyed, ‘the responsibility shit – I get it.’ There is a pause and she’s staring at him, everything from her messy hair to wrinkled uniform to glasses askew, making his fingers twitch to fix it. ‘But I also know you can do both. Save humans and humanity. Be my fucking Squad Leader, Hanji.’ It takes all the effort in the world not to stare down at the floor of her room because what is she says no? What if she just rejects him?

‘Okay,’ she says, grinning, and something like relief floods his system. Then she’s reaching forward, pulling him into a hug, tucking his head under her chin, arms around his shoulders as she hums some ditty from her throat, letting it echo and shiver down his spine as he finds himself hugging her back.

He’s glaring at her collarbone for an entire minute until she pulls away just a little bit, looking down at his face. ‘You have a lot of faith in people, y’know. For being such a freak.’

Affronted, he snarls, ‘ _I’m_ a freak? Have you met yourself?’

Hanji just hums low from her throat and bends forward, her back arched so she can tuck her face into the crook of his neck, her eyelashes tickling the skin underneath his jaw. Rivaille has never been very good at physical affection but this is Hanji, so he’ll make an exception.

‘Hey, so now I’m your girl Hanji _and_ your Squad Leader,’ she snorts, ‘is this a proposal?’

‘You still remember that shit?’ groans Rivaille, because there are parts of him that he doesn’t ever want to remember, like being sixteen and stupid. ‘Whatever – it’s whatever you fucking think it is, I don’t care.’

‘I like you too,’ she supplies cheerily as if she’s being helpful. Rivaille freezes, arms still locked around her waist. His brain malfunctions and there is white noise where he thought he kept that shit under wraps, but apparently not if Hanji could see through him like this.

‘That’s stupid. You’re stupid. I’m leaving.’ Rivaille figures this is as good as language as he’s going to get for the time being, until Hanji pulls away from his neck and slides her mouth over the curve of his cheek, pressing gently at the corner of his lips. ‘Uh,’ manages Rivaille.

‘Ah, you’re Hanji’s first kiss too,’ she laughs, teasing him until his face is probably going to overheat. This is so stupid. Everything is stupid. He’s going to melt in her room and Irvin isn’t going to have a Corporal tomorrow and he’d rather stare an ugly 15m Titan freak in the eye than do this shit right now.

‘That was fucking awful,’ he says instead and pulls at her messy ponytail, nudging it until his mouth is completely on hers and he’s pulling on her top lip, skimming the tip of his tongue over the ridge of her front teeth. He hopes he’s doing this right considering there was never a real opportunity to do so when you’re off training and killing all day.

Hanji makes a noise in the back of her throat – the same one that she does when she’s found some sort of delightful explanation for a phenomena – and pulls eagerly at his bottom lip, trying to imitate his tongue. It turns slow, then sloppy, then eager by turns. They’re a panting mess by the time Rivaille bites on her bottom lip and sucks, tugging it outwards and letting it pop back in place as he draws in a much-needed breath.

‘So that’s why people do that,’ concludes Hanji, nodding to herself, before her face turns down towards him again. ‘Wanna try some more?’

Rivaille feels like he’s drunk – drunk on Hanji, drunk on her kisses, drunk on this sudden flush of affection that he’s been trying to displace for years but all for naught when she looks at him like that, wide glittering eyes and a grin.

‘Fuck it,’ says Rivaille, and she kisses him again, delighted. They’re stumbling until the back of her knees hit the edge of the bed and they fall on top, Rivaille’s hands catching him as they frame her head. ‘I can’t believe I like you, y’know,’ he complains as Hanji’s hands undo the buttons of his shirt, splaying her fingers over his chest and curling her nails to catch at his nipples. It makes him gasp, eyes fluttering.

‘Me too,’ she replies conversationally, pushing the shirt off his shoulders until he’s straddling her stomach and stripping himself of his shirt and jacket. ‘You’re so clean – didn’t you come from a manufacturing town?’

Rivaille’s fingers are now working her shirt, pulling at her tightly wrapped breasts to free them. She arches her back willingly, giving him space to maneuver the clothes off her torso. ‘You came from a fucking flourishing fruit town,’ replies Rivaille, ‘and all you do is eat meat and go back to your room to research, you antisocial freak.’

‘Your logic doesn’t make – ah – sense,’ she says as his mouth draws a line up her neck. ‘Nothing you do makes sense. You’re so weird.’ Her words come out in short gasps as Rivaille scrapes his teeth over her jawline, his fingers skimming the edges of her pants. Hanji cants her hips upwards – ‘well, c’mon then,’ and he’s quickly undoing the zip and has her hips shimmying out of them.

Naked and splayed out on her bed, Hanji slides her fingers through his hair in the most pleasant way, and Rivaille closes his eyes to focus on the feeling. ‘You make enough friends for me.’

‘That’s not the point,’ says Rivaille, opening his eyes and gazing down at her. He undoes his own pants and pushes them down his feet, kicking them off.

‘It _is_ the point,’ she says, her hands skimming down his arms as she props herself up on her elbows. With a little effort, they’re both now flat on the bed, with Rivaille still straddling her hips, his cock half-hard, as she traces patterns down the skin of his stomach with her fingers.

‘I’m losing the conversation,’ admits Rivaille in a gasp as her fingers curl around his cock and tug at him once, twice, thumbing the head to draw the beading precome down the length.

Hanji shakes her head, laughing softly, ‘You complement me, shorty.’

Rivaille thrusts into her grip gently, eyes fluttering at the sensation of her hot grasp over him. ‘What – I’m the human to your Titan?’ It’s a wonder he’s even making sense at this point.

‘Yeah,’ Hanji whispers, propping herself up and drawing him down into another kiss as she gently jerks him off, ‘let’s fuck each other up.’

He gasps into her mouth as she twists her grip on the backstroke and has his hips stuttering for more. Soon, he’s reluctantly pushing her hand away and sliding down the length of her body, laving her skin with his tongue. He licks at her breasts, the points of her nipples, around the areola, before counting her ribs with butterfly kisses and blowing a raspberry in her bellybutton for being so annoying. It has her arching and laughing, and Rivaille thinks that’s a wonderful combination.

Her cunt is slick and outlined with dark hair. He doesn’t even think if its dirty when he presses his mouth to it, licking a long line from the apex of her thighs to the tip where a pink nub peeks out behind a flap of skin. Above him, Hanji keens. ‘Fuck, again, Rivaille.’

Rivaille obeys – drawing out her pleasure with languid strokes of his tongue. She smells of the forest during the summer, he thinks, as he pushes back the folds of her labia to find her entrance. The tip of his tongue circles around the hole, making her shiver. ‘No, wait, Rivaille, back to the rest of my cunt,’ she says, and – with a few instructions – Rivaille is following her as she reaches the edge, seeing her muscles in her thighs and stomach clench and unclench as waves of pleasure wash over her.

He learns her body and her pleasure slowly but surely, drawing out her upcoming orgasm while following her words. She likes her labia stroked, her clit flicked with his tongue, her slick lapped up messily, sloppily. Rivaille keeps her on edge for as long as he can, taking his time to follow through with whatever shoots jolts up her spine.

Eventually, as he dives back into her cunt, licking past the folds of her cunt, he hears a, ‘oh fuck, I’m going to – Rivaille, _Rivaille_ ,’ and it’s the hottest thing he’s ever heard as orgasms rocks through her body, has her back arched and fingers scratching into the sheets underneath. A flood of slick passes through her cunt, and Rivaille laps it up, trying to give a name to the taste as his tongue presses against her oversensitive cunt.

Half a minute later, there are hands on his shoulders, drawing him upwards and Hanji’s licking her own slick off his face before kissing him deeply, thankful as well. Rivaille gives as much as takes, fitting his cock in the curve of her hip, rocking gently into her, as he kisses her.

When they part in a gasp, Hanji’s looking at him determinedly, ‘do you want me to suck you or do you want to come in me?’

Rivaille’s brain stutters and blows up somewhere in that sentence and he’s staring at her blankly, trying to figure out what exactly she’s asking because there was no way she offered that. All of that.

‘Both, then,’ she laughs, and soon, Rivaille is on his back, staring at the ceiling, as Hanji hums contemplatively over his cock below. ‘You know you’re pretty packed for such a small guy.’

That makes his erection flag a little. ‘Can you not,’ he says flatly, and she’s laughing again before her hand grasps him gently and strokes him. Rivaille’s voice dies in his throat as she spreads his leaking precome over the shaft and uses it to ease her strokes. Her other hand comes up and tickles along his balls, rolling them gently in her palm.

‘Oh fuck,’ he says, and Hanji hums in what he assumes is agreement as she lays an open-mouthed kiss over his tip. There’s a strangled noise coming from somewhere when his cockhead is swallowed down the searing heat of Hanji’s mouth and it takes a beat before Rivaille realizes it’s coming from him.

Hanji sucks at his cock without any urgency, laying on the saliva as she pulls off and licks long trails up the underside. She’s tracing patterns with her tongue over the sensitive skin, her other hand still playing with his balls. Rivaille inadvertently bucks, trying to get more of her on him, and both of Hanji’s hands land on his hips, restraining him.

‘Don’t want to choke, y’know,’ she says, and Rivaille makes a half-moan of agreement because he wouldn’t ever want to hurt her. Still, he thinks she’s choking herself when her mouth swallows him down entirely, the tip of his cock bumping at her throat.

Her cheeks hollow out as she sucks, and Rivaille throws his head back as pleasure slams through his nerve-endings. It’s so hot, so fucking hot and everything is narrowing down to Hanji’s mouth on his cock, sucking on his beading precome, getting his dick sloppy with saliva, letting it drip over the skin of his balls.

Something hot curls up at the base of his spine and Rivaille realizes that his orgasm is going to come hot and fast if she doesn’t stop – ‘Hanji – Han – oh fu- _uck_ – Hanji – ’ and – thankfully – Hanji pulls off, mouth swollen and red and wet with his precome and spit. Rivaille’s mouth is dry but he tries to voice out his words anyway. ‘Was gonna come – shit – ’

She nods in understanding, backing off his cock, and – without even a word – straddles his abdomen, the wet head of his dick bumping against her ass. ‘In me now, right?’

‘Do you want to?’ he manages out. Hanji cocks her head, face contemplative.

‘I love you,’ she says as if she’s talking about the weather, about what breakfast cereal they’re going to have today, about planting new crops in the spring, about a million different ordinary, everyday things, and Rivaille feels like he’s going to go into cardiac arrest and die with how fast his heart is beating.

‘My cock is at your ass and you can say something like that?’ he laughs out, breathless.

‘I can say it tomorrow morning,’ she offers.

‘No – you’re – ’ Flustered, Rivaille hooks his hands over her hips. ‘Dumbass. You’re so – I can’t believe you would – ’ He’s floundering with his words and it’s awkward and he feels sort of stupid, like back when he was sixteen, but Hanji leans over him and kisses the words out of his mouth before he says something he’ll regret.

Finally, she pulls away from the kiss, licking at her mouth, and Rivaille stares. ‘I love you too, shithead,’ he admits, slightly mortified that these words have finally left his chest and are up in the air.

Hanji slides a hand down his neck and flicks one of his nipples, making him arch and slide his hips upwards. She grinds back, his cock pressed against her ass, and Rivaille gasps again. ‘In me,’ she orders him, lifting herself up.

Somehow, her hand has the tip of his cock lined up against her wet entrance, and she slides down his cock as if she's always done this, her stomach clenched tight with concentration as Rivaille feels himself be engulfed by her cunt.

‘Gonna ride you,’ Hanji tells him, rearranging her knees so she’s completely on his cock and her hands are clutching the sheets at the sides of his ribs. Without thought, Rivaille circles his fingers around her wrists, anchoring her, and she grins before she’s lifting herself up and rolling downwards.

It’s a searing, burning heat that shoots through Rivaille’s body as she fucks herself on his cock, rolling her hips to some unheard beat over and over again. It’s so good – the friction over his skin, the wet muscles of her cunt pressed all around him. He wonders if she can feel each twitch of his dick, the way it shivers and curves against her.

The pace gets faster but Rivaille doesn’t mind as Hanji bounces in his lap, her eyes fluttering shut as she focuses on the weight inside of her. Her fingers let go of the sheets and lace in-between his own and Rivaille’s chest clenches with something that both warms and hurts him. ‘Oh god, Rivaille, I need you to fuck me back,’ she says, eyes now open and focused on him, ‘it’s not enough – I need it harder.’

Rivaille nods, unlacing their hands. He settles them on her hips and spreads his legs, his feet flat against the mattress and knees pulled upwards. When she lifts herself up – there’s a pause where Rivaille clenches his muscles – and Hanji drops downwards the same time his hips ramp into her and their skin meet in a loud sound of flesh on flesh.

It’s amazing. Hanji laughs, ‘ _oh_ , fuck yes, again, do it again,’ and he’s fucking her as she’s fucking him. His pace is harsh, brutal, fast, and Hanji meets him each and every step, her hips frantic, her cunt swallowing his cock down whole with each movement. It’s going to overwhelm him – the sight of her pleasure, the feel of her shivering cunt, the burn of pleasure in the pit of his stomach.

Her second orgasm is written in the line of her shoulders and the clench of her fingers as she slams back down each time he shoves upwards. Rivaille knows it’s coming and he wants to last until she does. Wants to feel it with every part of him. Hanji is panting, not caring in the slightest at the sweat over her skin and the filthy sound of them fucking. It’s just hot and wonderful and Rivaille doesn’t stop – he can’t stop.

They fuck against each other frantically, letting the pleasure build up. Rivaille’s cock is already twitching, waiting to get to the end, but Rivaille ignores his own to see her complete unravelling. Hanji moans, loud and slutty, and meets his thrust but doesn’t pull back upwards, just lets his cock grind deep within her for a long moment. ‘Rivaille,’ she moans, and Rivaille only pushes up against her overheated skin, trying to cant his hips so he can get all of his cock into her.

There’s a beat and Hanji rides up and rams back down in a long brutal thrust before her orgasm overtakes her. Rivaille feels all his breath leave his body as her cunt clenches and unclenches, milking his dick within her, drenching his cock in slick release, and he has no control when he tightens his grip on her hips and fucks into her for the last few moments.

Hanji lets him, her body still shivering her orgasm as she rides it out on his harsh, brutal thrusts and Rivaille loses his mind as he starts to come, filling her up as much as he can, feeling the warmth of his own semen and her slick ease over his oversensitive cock and her clenching muscles.

Carefully and slowly, Hanji eases herself off him, her face happy but her body exhausted and caked in sweat and slick. Without a sound, she tumbles onto her side next to Rivaille, grinning lazily at him as her fingers skitter downwards and press against her cunt. ‘You’re so warm in here.’

Rivaille makes a face. ‘Don’t be gross, Hanji,’ but a bolt of filthy arousal shoots down his spine anyway. Slowly, he runs a hand through her damp hair, feeling his heartbeat try to return to its normal rate. Like a cat, Hanji arches into his touch, nuzzling at his wrist with her nose and it makes him snort. ‘Freak.’

‘Mm, not as much as you,’ she yawns, pressing a butterfly kiss to his skin. ‘Oh, hey, you’re my first lover too. Damn, Rivaille.’

Somehow, the admission has him blushing like he’s been caught jerking off by Irvin. Rivaille pulls away, flustered. ‘Feel free to get a second one and compare,’ he blurts and then regrets it entirely but it’s too late.

Her arm curves around his torso and there are fingers tracing down the length of his spine, ‘I don’t want a second one.’ Hanji’s mouth is at his neck, breathing warm air over the skin, ‘I’ll be your girl Hanji and your Squad Leader, but you’ll be my only lover.’

‘Okay,’ agrees Rivaille in a breath, ‘yeah. Okay.’

That’s when she hugs him again and Rivaille realizes they’re both super gross and sweaty and covered in other bodily fluids and the sheets are fucked and oh my god, this is absolutely fucking disgusting.

‘And now your first order is that we’re getting fucking clean,’ he announces, slightly scandalized at how not-clean this entire situation is and begins to tug Hanji off the bed and into the adjoining bathroom.

Rivaille is twenty-one when he runs his soapy fingers through the wet tangles of Hanji’s hair and admits, ‘you’re my first and last lover too.’

-

Rivaille is twenty-two when Wall Rose is breached.

The rest is history.

-

**Author's Note:**

> Rivaille is such a snarky little thing. I do hope you enjoyed the fic!
> 
> x-posted to [tumblr](http://leftfoottrapped.tumblr.com/post/54200114591).


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